Elissa's departure wild rice salad

elissa elissa
o how we'll miss ye.
we now entrust you with your own
self, as if with our greatest prize.
take care!
COME BACK! we're not done with you!
Love.

Elissa's leaving town. I should be astonished by the turnover here, people moving in and out, but each person is always a special case. They all have their reasons. Anyhow, i help her clean her apartment, and try to decide what a good going-away present would be: something not too large, don't want to burden her, just want to show her i care. It'll be a long flight to New York, i think, while scrubbing the tub. I don't have much cash, i think, defrosting the antique freezer. She sure doesn't need more reading materials, i think, while claiming some back issues of her zine, along with sheets, cheese, and purple nail polish.

I like to take care of people. So i made her food to bring along. Of course, it being me, there was a terrible lack of planning, so i had to make do with what we had. She got a peanut butter and honey sandwich, red hots, carrot sticks, blood oranges, sesame candy, balloons (not for eating. she's done childcare, i'm sure she'll know they're not for eating), teaberry gum, a note typed with the typewriter we inherited from her, and this salad. The wild rice was left over from the Thanksgiving photo shoot - a miracle in the fridge!

The salt is almost unnecessary, what with the feta. I packed it up with a lot of love, a paper bag, a spoon and some masking tape (don't want Elissa's departure wild rice salad all over her stuff!). Slipped in the note, just like a mom. Sending, always, away.

*The rice (which is not really rice) should be cooked, silly. Otherwise, the texture will be all wrong (and the salad will be inedible.) The water to rice ratio should be 3:1, and it'll probably take from 40 minutes to an hour to cook. Some of them will split and curl. This note has been provided for your own good, you know.